Moped rider dies in Ware crash with car pursued by police
The force said the incident has been referred "as a matter of course" to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.Det Sgt Ben Heath, from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Road Policing Unit, said: "Our thoughts are with the loved ones of the man that has sadly passed away."He appealed for witnesses and anyone with dashcam footage to get in touch.
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Metro
22 minutes ago
- Metro
The Repair Shop's Jay Blades charged with two counts of rape
Former star of The Repair Shop, Jay Blades, has been accused of two counts of rape. Police confirmed the allegations against the star who fronted the BBC show for seven years before stepping back in 2024. It was also confirmed that the host, 55, is set to appear in court next week. 'Jason Blades, 55, of Claverley in Shropshire, has been charged with two counts of rape. 'He is due to appear at Telford magistrates' court on 13 August 2025,' a spokesperson for the West Mercia Police told The Sun. It was announced that Blades was taking a step back from the show in May 2024, soon after he split from his wife. Blades' wife, Lisa Marie Zbozen, shared on social media that their marriage was over after 18 months. In her message, she said that she felt 'incredibly sad about the whole thing', adding: 'I don't think I've ever cried so much'. It was then reported that while The Repair Shop was continuing to film, Blades was 'having a break' from the production. 'Jay has taken a step back and is having a break from filming The Repair Shop,' a source told The Sun. 'His uncle's death in March and the breakdown of his marriage means he has decided to take some time out.' In October, Blades was charged with engaging in controlling and coercive behaviour, with allegations coming from his estranged wife, Zbozen. Blades pleaded not guilty to the charges. The charge against Blades alleges his behaviour had a serious effect' on his partner. Judge James Burbidge KC rejected an application for part of the proceedings to be heard in private, before adjourning the case with a possible trial date of May 6 next year. More Trending The future of BBC TV programme The Repair Shop, which he has been a part of ever since it launched in 2017, has been called into question. An insider reportedly told The Sun: 'The Beeb won't feature any new shows in which he appears until it is clear how legal proceedings conclude.' The broadcaster previously confirmed to Metro that he is not currently filming the programme, and the BBC is currently not going to be scheduling any programmes in which he is featured- but content that already features Blades will remain on BBC iPlayer. View More » Metro has reached out to Jay Blades' representatives and the West Mercia Police for comment. Got a story? If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@ calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you. MORE: MasterChef star edited out of BBC series stresses she knows how to 'spot a creep' MORE: David Attenborough fans left facing 'nightmares' after witnessing baby spiders devour their mum MORE: Netflix fans issued warning to 'have your tissues ready' over gut-wrenching series
Times
23 minutes ago
- Times
Uh-oh, he's back in the news — it's Prince Andrew, the duke of hazard
For a man who hardly goes anywhere or sees anyone, the Duke of York has a very unfortunate habit of finding himself in the spotlight. He is the subject of a new book full of extraordinary allegations, which, as so often with the older of the King's brothers, can be divided into two broad categories: claims that are concerning and serious, and those that are slightly less concerning but further burnish his hard-earned and unimpeachable reputation for oafishness. • Jeffrey Epstein sold Prince Andrew's secrets, new book claims In his book the historian Andrew Lownie writes that Prince Andrew's friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, which was the source of so many of his problems, may have been even more perilous than previously expected. The 'rattlesnake' Epstein sold Andrew's 'most intimate secrets' to foreign intelligence agencies, it is claimed. And Epstein is alleged by sources to have been an 'agent of influence' for President Putin. Lownie wrote: 'The Prince was a useful idiot who gave him respectability, access to political leaders and business opportunities. He found him easy to exploit.' Epstein died in his prison cell in New York in 2019 while awaiting trial for child sex trafficking offences, but the prospect that he had links to intelligence agencies who may not have the best interests of Andrew or the royal family at heart is not entirely reassuring. Rather less surprising are claims in the book, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, that Andrew can be rude to staff. One painful vignette features a head of the household at Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland reporting damage to a tree planted by Andrew's grandmother. He referred to her as the Queen Mother, rather than her full title, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. This ignited the fury of Andrew, who allegedly called him a 'f***ing imbecile' and ordered him out. • Prince Andrew, the King and the 'siege of Royal Lodge' Andrew turned 65 in February. If his parents' genes are anything to go by, he could be living the strange life of a semi-detached royal for decades to come. Last year The Times reported that, shorn of an official role, he spends long days at Royal Lodge watching television in a darkened room and venturing out on horseback into the Windsor estate's 40 hectares three times a week. Meanwhile, anxious courtiers wait for the duke's past to trigger its next unwelcome detonation. The day Andrew cannot escape is one back in 2001 when a camera captured him at the Belgravia home of Ghislaine Maxwell with his arm round the waist of young Virginia Giuffre. The photograph has been disputed and he claimed that he could not recall meeting her. But Giuffre, who said she was recruited as a masseuse for Epstein by Maxwell, claimed she was forced to have sex with the duke when she was a teenager. In 2022 he reportedly settled a lawsuit brought by her for £12 million without admitting liability. He had been forced to retreat from public long before that. His boneheaded refusal to express regret for his friendship with Epstein in his notorious 2019 interview with Emily Maitlis on Newsnight, and his failure to convincingly answer questions put to him about Giuffre, caused a public outcry and ended his royal career. His alibis included that he had been at Pizza Express in Woking on the night that it was claimed he danced with her at Tramp nightclub, and that he could not have sweated on the dancefloor, as was vividly claimed, because a peculiar medical condition meant he did not perspire. Within days it was announced that he was stepping back from public duties. When he attempted a comeback in 2021, Prince Charles headed him off, with a source saying 'a way back for the duke is demonstrably not possible' and that it was an unsolvable problem because 'the spectre of this [accusation] raises its head with hideous regularity'. Not one but two streaming service dramas about the Newsnight interview kept the Epstein mess firmly in the public eye in the UK and around the world. Then in April this year Giuffre's sad story ended in tragedy as she took her own life in Australia. • Prince Andrew 'called staff member an imbecile over Queen Mother' With Epstein and the conspiracy theories around him entangling President Trump, this is a miserable mire in which Andrew is stuck. Just last week his one-time friend Maxwell, for whom he once threw a birthday party at Sandringham with Epstein in attendance, was moved to a minimum-security prison in Texas. She is serving 20 years for her role in Epstein's sex trafficking network but recently spoke to a top US Justice Department official about what she knows. One of her lawyers said they had not talked to the president about a pardon 'just yet'. Another big embarrassment for the royal family emerged last year when the prince was named as an associate of an alleged Chinese spy. A court named him as a confidant of Yang Tengbo, an alleged agent. During the case it emerged that a senior aide to Andrew had written to Yang, a Chinese businessman, telling him he was 'at the very top of a tree' of the duke's contacts. This prompted Stella Rimington, the former director of MI5, to wonder: 'Maybe he's just the weakest link.' The news led to him abandoning plans to join the King at the traditional family Christmas at Sandringham. The previous year he was invited to Sandringham with Sarah, the Duchess of York, his former wife, in a sign that they might be being gradually rehabilitated. His close family have stood by him, especially his former wife. In an intriguing arrangement they have continued to live under the same roof, despite divorcing in 1996. She has called him 'a great man' and in an interview with The Sunday Times about her experience of mental health problems with men she talked about caring for her late father. 'I was left to look after a sad man, which is sort of what I'm doing now,' she said, possibly referring to her relationship with Andrew. In an interview in The Times at the start of this year she talked about going to some 'dark places' after she had two forms of cancer diagnosed within months of each other. 'My family have been an immense support to me through this period. I've used meditation and mindfulness to help stay positive and balanced,' she said. • Sarah Ferguson: I will not let Andrew down Ferguson is said to have been regarded by the King as a helpful conduit to his brother during a period when relations between them have been strained, culminating in the 'siege of Royal Lodge'. The King had said he would cut his scandal-hit sibling off financially if he continued to stay in the 30-room home in Windsor Great Park, instead of moving to the more modest accommodation at Frogmore Cottage, the former home of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Andrew has a lease on Royal Lodge, which the Queen Mother turned into a comfortable family home, until 2078, but Charles was no longer prepared to pay for his security. The home is outside the main Windsor security cordon. In a surprise development last year Andrew raised the funds to stay from legitimate sources. The duke's finances have long been a matter of speculation, including when it emerged that Ferguson once had a debt paid off by Epstein. It is known that he sold his former marital home, Sunninghill Park, a wedding present from Queen Elizabeth, for £15 million, £3 million above the asking price. He also sold a ski chalet in Switzerland in 2022. Andrew and 'Fergie' now have the welcome distraction of four grandchildren: Princess Beatrice's daughters Sienna, aged three, and Athena Mapelli Mozzi, six months, and Princess Eugenie's sons August, four, and Ernest Brooksbank, two. And at Easter he made a surprise appearance at the royal family's Easter service in St George's Chapel, Windsor. Sources have made it clear that he will still be welcome at such 'family events'. But minor indignities continue to be visited upon the prince. A school named after him on the island of St Helena was reported to be looking for a more 'neutral' name (will the title 'Duke of York' be retired once he relinquishes it?). Among the old anecdotes that continue to be thrown up, one that seemed especially absurd involved an employee being moved to other duties because the prince objected to him wearing a nylon tie. What then to do with a problem like Prince Andrew? The writer AN Wilson wondered in The Times last year if Andrew could not be sent to govern the Falkland Islands, where the one heroic episode of his life is recorded: piloting helicopters during the war against General Galtieri's invading forces. He quickly, regretfully answered his own question: 'It would be a neat solution but, given his extreme stupidity and his ability to attract dodgy friends, it would not be politically feasible to entrust him with such a role.' The King may dream of his brother being somewhere trouble can't find him, but at least when he's in Windsor he can keep a close eye on him and perhaps get an early warning when this never-ending saga next explodes back into life.
Times
37 minutes ago
- Times
How would Reform fix ‘lawless Britain'?
Every week is now crime week for Reform UK. As MPs have retreated to their constituencies over the summer to tend to grassroots campaigning, Nigel Farage is filling the void with a run of announcements on his new favourite theme: crime and the rising levels of antisocial behaviour. His pitch, bleakly entitled 'Britain is lawless', seeks to capitalise on general unease about rising criminality and a sense that offences are not being pursued or prosecuted with sufficient vigour. Mr Farage ramped up his rhetoric yesterday by calling for the ethnicity of suspects charged with rape and sexual assaults to be made public. Citing the wave of protests at hotels housing asylum seekers, he said there was 'rising public anger' over the issue. He also spoke of a 'cover-up', citing the controversy over Warwickshire police's decision not to release the immigration status of two men arrested for the alleged rape of a girl in Nuneaton. Reform's leader said the illegal asylum problem was no longer only about fairness for taxpayers but the 'safety of women and children'. Mr Farage has a point on data. It is troubling that there has been a five-fold increase in convictions in which ethnicity has not been recorded. Police may feel squeamish about publishing such data but failing to do so will encourage the belief, happily promoted by the far right, that there is something to hide. Neil O'Brien, the Conservative MP, has warned that this culture of secrecy also makes it harder to join the dots in tackling crime. Equal candour is needed in disclosing how many criminals have been born abroad and how many have entered illegally. Voters are entitled to know. As part of its push on crime Reform has appointed Vanessa Frake, a former prison governor, as the party's new adviser on criminal justice. Ms Frake promoted 'super-max' prisons, inspired by institutions in America for prisoners who are considered incapable of rehabilitation. She claimed these tougher institutions would 'restore law and order' and end the 'sorry tale' that is Britain's crumbling penal system. Yet, as is often the case within Reform, Ms Frake has found herself immediately at odds with the party's leadership. She believes, wrongly, there should be no blanket ban on trans women in female prisons, preferring for prisoners to be assessed individually. This fracas highlights a continuing problem within Reform. While it — or rather, Mr Farage — is adept at tapping into the public mood, fully thought-through solutions are lacking. In his understanding of public sentiment outside the Westminster bubble, Mr Farage has sensibly heeded the advice of Jonathan Swift: 'It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.' Mr Farage was one of the first to sound the alarm over small boats and on the mark when it came to the excesses of net zero. The same is true of his focus on tackling the likes of shoplifting and muggings. Crime is fertile territory for Reform. Both Conservative and Labour administrations have failed to concentrate sufficiently on combating crime, ignoring the public's deep disquiet about the issue. The problem is Mr Farage's persistent failure to equip rhetoric with costings. His plans to recruit 30,000 more police officers, send prisoners overseas and construct five new prisons are as yet unfunded but likely to cost some £17.4 billion. Mr Farage says Britain cannot afford not to act. Many will agree, but he needs to submit the invoice.
